There is a lot of cleanup before and after the Passover Seder!

We were cleaning up after seder and I think it was GES who said, no one ever talks about how much there is to clean up! First of all, you go shopping for the week before, not unlike any major holiday, no matter what you celebrate. Then, there is the setup to begin cooking, then there are the dishes, pots, pans, mixing bowls and the like to clean during and after cooking.

Then you set the table, maybe you’re using the family china or the set you bought just for these occassions or maybe you’re using paper or plastic as those things are getting nicer every year. This year, we had some fancy looking, nice plastic plates with silver trim from Costco, you may have seen it and the genuine silver looking plastic utensils and paper cups, a perfect senario, easy right?

Well, even with the plastic plates, utensils and paper cups, there were still multiple mounds of dishes to be washed as we were serving the different courses and then after, oh my word, we must have run the dishwasher at least four times! And there were still dishes when we went to sleep! The next morning, unload and load at least two more times! Then you have to move the chairs to the other room, the dining room table needs to go back where it came from, sweep the floors, maybe mop, unload the dishwasher, put the dishes away and load the dishwasher again?

We laughed about the time the dishwasher broke right in the middle of seder, everything was washed by hand, some things need to be, but not all, well, that night they did!

I’m sure this was no different than any holiday celebrations that you’ve had and thought, hey it would be great to be able to throw everything away, cleanup would be a snap! Not so! We used plastic plates, those went into the dishwasher, but even if we hadn’t kept the plates and utensils, it would still have been a glorious, wonderul mess right up to the point we all collapesd after it was over!